Muddle Through Somehow
by Ellie12
Summary: Post Merry Little Christmas HouseCuddyOnly her searing eyes were constant as Polaris, but it hurt him to look and see the questions he couldn’t answer.


Title: Muddle Through Somehow  
Author: Ellie  
Rating: PG13  
Summary: "The world seemed to spin on its axis as she helped him up and across and back down again, the muted hues of the room whirling around him. Only her searing eyes were constant as Polaris, but it hurt him to look and see the questions he couldn't answer." Post-"Merry Little Christmas"

---  
"_Faithful friends who were dear to us  
Will be near to us once more  
Someday soon we all will be together  
If the fates allow  
Until then, we'll have to muddle through somehow  
So have yourself a merry little Christmas now."  
---  
_

It was the night before Christmas, and all was peaceful at the hospital for once. Cuddy had taken advantage of the holiday calm to leave work on time for once, slipping out of her office as the sky was darkening. Even if she didn't celebrate the holiday, it was nice to slip home and relax for the evening, especially after the week she'd had with House.

At some point, she must have fallen asleep on her couch, because when she woke, Letterman was prattling on her television and her phone was ringing. She fumbled for it, not awake enough to check the caller ID before answering.

"Hello?" She hoped she didn't sound as sleepy as it felt.

"Cuddy?"

She glanced at the clock by the television. "Wilson! It's almost midnight."

"You need to go take care of House."

"What?" She was suddenly awake, but confused. "What has he done now?"

"He's laying in a pile of his own vomit between empty bottles of Maker's Mark and oxy."

As he spoke, she was up off the couch and hunting for shoes and car keys. "How do you know this? You're his best friend, why aren't you taking care of him?"

A sigh fizzled across the line. "I went over to check on him, and saw the label on the pills. He stole them from one of my dead patients. If I want to stay his friend, I had to leave. And you're…." Wilson trailed off, unsure of how to describe what Cuddy couldn't herself. Until that moment she hadn't been sure Wilson knew, but wasn't about to question him on it now, and certainly not about to clarify.

There was no real answer to give him, other than to agree. "Yeah. I'm on my way now." She hung up the phone and tossed it into her jacket pocket. The slam of her front door was the only indicator of her anger.

---

He felt the vibrations of footsteps across the hardwood, lighter and calmer than Wilson's had been. Yet even that slight tremor echoed and amplified into the ache radiating through his body, rattled the nausea. When a face appeared above him, it hurt to focus his eyes. When he saw her expression, he wished he hadn't put in the effort and closed them again.

Her hand on his neck, feather-light against his carotid, quieted him like a finger against a tuning fork. He dared to open his eyes again, and this time it was a little easier to focus. Cuddy still had the same guilty, crushed look of worry on her face. When she caught him watching, she tried to hide it with professional neutrality, but she was a bad liar.

"Can you make it to the couch?" Her tone was flat and soft, and if he'd been slightly more coherent, it would have worried him. A lot.

He started to nod, then thought better of it. "Yes," he said, roughly. He didn't ask for her assistance getting there, taking it as a given. And it was—her arm was around him, aiding, before he was even sitting upright. There was no asking, no hesitation, she was just her efficient self and for once he was glad of it, happy to let her take charge when he would have resigned himself to a night on the floor.

The world seemed to spin on its axis as she helped him up and across and back down again, the muted hues of the room whirling around him. Only her searing eyes were constant as Polaris, but it hurt him to look and see the questions he couldn't answer. He closed his eyes, but that seemed to make the swirling worse. When he opened them again, she was spreading a blanket over him, tucking it around his trembling, clammy form.

For a minute, he shut his eyes again, smelling the ghost of her perfume and feeling the softness of the afghan. Then she's back, hand gentle on his arm, pressing a glass to his lips. He sputtered when he finally took a sip, shocked that it's not the plain water he was expecting.

"Orange juice," she said simply, keeping the glass at his lips. Like the good little boy he never, ever was, he gulped it down, an unpleasant contrast to the whisky and vomit.

She pulled the glass away and sat it on the coffee table, next to the liquor bottle. It's quiet, and it almost felt like the world was defying Galileo and ceasing to spin. He took a moment to enjoy it before she said in an odd whisper, "Why did you peel all the wax off the bottle?"

It's certainly not what he was expecting, and it sets him reeling again. "I forget your limited experience with the myriad forms of intoxication." He doesn't need to open his eyes to know the look she's giving him.

There's a long, heavy sigh before she said anything else. "Can you even explain?"

He doesn't think he can, doesn't think he has the words to make her understand that it just hurt so fucking much he couldn't take it anymore. Couldn't take the detox, couldn't take the pain, couldn't take what all of it was bringing to bear on everyone he cared about. His world was crashing down, and he didn't want to deal with it anymore. "I don't know." It was as close to honest as he could be.

Her hand against his cheek was so soft, he wished he could crawl inside her skin and live there, protected by her silky warmth, where he was sure there would be no pain, only the wonderfulness that was Cuddy. She'd protect him from all of it, tuck him in and take care of him and make the hurt stop like she was trying to do now, like she always tried to even though it was never quite enough. At least she tried. It took all his effort to turn his head enough to kiss the palm of her hand.

"Were you just trying to stop all the pain you're in? Or…?" She didn't even finish, couldn't finish, her hand slipping down his arm to curl tightly around his bicep. He didn't flinch away, even when her nails dug into the flesh, because it's such a welcome distraction from everything else he was feeling.

"It was too much." Too much of everything, in too many ways to enumerate for her now. He could feel the shards of life that had crashed around him start to cut into his flesh as he lay on the floor, and there was no way he could tell her that. He'd have let them cut him until he bled on death on the floor, his own wrongs doing the right thing and ending his life. It wasn't what he'd wanted, but he'd been too overwhelmed to fight it anymore.

Cuddy drew a long, deep breath and trailed her hand down to rest warm over his heart. It felt like she knew what he couldn't say, or at least guessed at the gist of it. He forgot sometimes how clever she was, and how long she'd known him. "You need to go to rehab."

Before she could even get the words out, he started to choke a protest, but she cut him off. "I don't give a damn about the deal with Tritter, House. I just can't watch you go on like this."

If she'd understood what he'd left unsaid earlier, he was sure she was counting on him to hear everything unsaid. Admittedly he wasn't at his sharpest, but he knew that professional reasons were only the smallest fraction of her concerns. "A kid needs at least one functional parent. With your crippling indecisiveness, I can't be an addict, too."

She let out a sigh tinged with a laugh and patted his chest. "Yes, you need to be in rehab for the good of our hypothetical spawn. Think of all the been-there, done-that stories you'll have to warn them off drugs later in life. Nothing's cool if Dad has done it."

He groaned and wasn't sure whether to clutch at his aching leg or his unhappy stomach. After a minute, things subsided enough for him to wonder, "What if it's like the ketamine?"

"If we get you on something else to manage the pain, it won't be. You're the most damnably stubborn man I know. If anyone has the willpower to overcome this, you do."

It seemed like he sunk a little deeper into the sofa cushions when he took a deep breath. He didn't want to live like this, had never wanted any of this, except for her beside him. "I'll go tell Tritter I'm taking the deal."

With a slow nod, she said, "All right. Let me get—"

"No," he cut her off abruptly. "I don't want you having anything else to do with this mess. Just…will you be here when I get back?"

"You're in no state to drive yourself."

"I won't. I'll take a cab." He met her eyes then, read the worry and pride and tenderness. She'd have written his confession herself it would have helped, would have done anything he asked except the one thing he tried to get her to do—leave him alone. She would not abandon him.

Cuddy nodded, a reluctant acquiescence, but she protested no more, simply helped him up. He could feel her eyes on him as he carefully headed out of the room to clean himself. What had he ever done, he wondered, to deserve such loyalty from anyone?

---

Cuddy sat on House's couch, eating a grilled cheese made with bread of questionable freshness, and stared around his slightly cleaner apartment. In his absence she'd cleaned up the floor and discarded bottles, leaving the room with a lemony disinfectant scent that reminded her too much of the hospital.

Finishing the sandwich, she left the plate on the coffee table and rose to examine the room more closely. House's things always seemed chaotic, but there'd always been an order to the madness once she examined them. Now as she brushed past the shelves, she saw Beckett next to Wilde, Armstrong next to Satie, a coral amongst a scattered array of faience scarabs.

She sat down on the piano bench, glancing over the shelves again before staring at the worn ivory keys, idly fingering a C major chord. Depressing the keys a bit deeper than intended, she noticed that something didn't sound quite right. It had been decades since she'd had a music lesson, but striking at middle C, then the simple chord again, made it quite clear that things were badly out of tune.

Before she could ponder that too deeply, the door swung open to admit a gust of cold, damp wind and House, looking all the worse for the wear. He didn't look at her, just collapsed onto the couch, hat tumbling back off his head as he rested his head against the back. As he closed his eyes tight and sighed, she slipped off the bench and settled lightly onto the cushions beside him.

"There's no deal," he said, sounding even worse than he had before he'd left.

"What do you mean?" She hadn't meant to sound demanding, but it slipped out that way.

"Tritter found out about the oxycodone. The deal's off the table."

Cuddy wasn't sure whether to wrap comforting arms around him or slap him for his careless stupidity. "You should still go to rehab. If you have to go to court anyway, it will sound much better if your lawyer can tell the judge that you've voluntarily entered a treatment program…."

"I know," he croaked, eyes still closed. When they snapped open, they seemed to bore into her soul until they hit something primal within her. It was the look of a predator backed into a corner by something even bigger and hungrier than itself, unsure of how to proceed.

"I've got a list of facilities in my office. You can pick one tomorrow, and I'll get you taken care of."

His head lolled off the back of the sofa to rest on her shoulder. Its weight was heavier than she remembered, and thought of the heavy burdens he carried inside. "Tomorrow," he mumbled.

"Tomorrow. You need to get some more fluids into you, and get some rest now."

She got up, prodding him up with her, arms tightly intertwined. Only when she helped him into bed and turn away to get him something to drink did he speak up.

"Are you resting too?"

If only she could find some respite now, from this maelstrom of his troubles and her own and the hospital. They both knew there was no rest for the weary, no matter how much they might wish it, only a few moments of calm in the eye of the storm.

She nodded and turned away. "I'll be right back."

When she returned with a glass of water, he was dozing, his left hand stretched out across the empty expanse of bed. She clasped it in her own as she lay down beside him and watched the play of shadows and nightmares across his face in the dark Christmas Eve.

---  
End


End file.
